Cold, 33 degrees (OK, so I'm a Calif Coast boy), crystal clear and the cars and trucks all gave me lots of room as I climbed up into the mountains this morning.

In town I did pass in front of a line of police in full riot gear; they were on the perimeter of the take back Santa Cruz encampment as their fellow officers were inside the encampment moving the campers out.

I could tell a mile before I saw them that something was up. The bike path along the levy I travel on for a very short distance was littered with trash and had people sleeping on it for the first time since the encampment went up. Some folks must have chosen to avoid the morning conflict by moving back to their old spots.

Good Grief, Kaseri! What was your average speed - about 5??!?

15F on the way in 36f on the way home. Pretty lazy ride on the single speed today, will be back on the Kuwie fri!

Loving these cold, non-rainy days. Completely different than the usual cold very wet days of last fall/winter. I'm bundling up in wool and enjoying every minute of every ride. Today I'm going to take the steeper route home too, for the heck of it.

There were moments when I was virtually crawling. It was quite funny & scary at times.

I rode to school in the afternoon because I was staying for a film screening at 7pm. -13C for the ride in with a decent tailwind.

-19C for the ride home, and I was a bit over dressed. I'm disappointed in the lithium AAAs I got for my tail light. The package specifically claimed they perform in temperatures down to -40. But by the time I got home on my -19 ride the light was very dim. The light returned to full brightness after taking it inside.

Had a valve failure before I was out the door, so spent a little while replacing the tube and truing the wheel while I was at it.

Lovely ride with no one on the Hudson trail...crisp, clear, winter day, fairly strong crosswind from the west.

Got another flat to bookend the commute 1/4 mile from work, and 1/8 mile from an LBS. Stopped in to buy some rubber as mine had dried, and tried to fix the flat in the warmth. Would have succeeded, but the flat was on a seam and I didn't sand it down well enough. Had another tube with me so I just replaced it again. Wasted a tube, but learned my lesson to get everything sanded down nice and smooth!

I'm enjoying a week off this week. Unplanned, but kind of relaxing. However, I'm starting to miss riding a bit - and the Rig keeps whining when I pass by. Monday morning we'll be back on the streets terrorizing the good citizens of El Paso!

So I get to the office this morning and the place is all abuzz. It seems that some drunken idiots drove their car through the side of our brand new $30-million building at 2 am last night. Apparently they weren't injured but they did major damage to our building, rendering our main conference room unusable for a yet-to-be-determined amount of time. I was in the room for a meeting two days this week. It's amazing they didn't kill someone.

Somewhere around 35 this morning, cold, crisp and no wind to speak of. Nice ride in.

Felt really good today - 45 and foggy, but not much traffic. Maybe it felt good because it's Friday? That always seems to help.

Slick and cold today. Roads had de-icer on them, bike lanes, nope... Had to walk up the Corbett street hill, to slick and steep, only made it half way up before the rear tire started slipping out.

I know a lot of riders commute down Corbett in the morning, be careful, it's icy this morning.

Oh, will the de-icer chemicals have any impact on bikes?

Easy ride in this morning. Good thing I didn't have to carry another frame box today!

First ride in this week earlier this morning. Temps around freezing, but no ice to speak of on the path or road. Stayed warm with multiple layers. Ride home should be fun.

For people outside Oregon, they don't use salt on the roads here but there is some liquid they put down sometimes that works. I don't know what it is, but I don't think it sprays around enough to get on our bikes. I remember the first time I saw the stuff a few years back. I was out on my motorcycle on a freezing day (dark morning, actually) and saw it on a curve coming up. I freaked out because it looks as though some maniac has sprayed water on the road.

No ride today, my left calf was feeling mildly pulled last night, so I decided to give it a rest. I think the jarring from pedaling across bumpy ice and snow is hard on the calves. I remember it bothering my last winter, but I was fine all summer. I got a pair of compression sleeves today, and my calve feels better already. I'll see if wearing them while commuting helps.

It was -22C this morning, but is up to -10C already. I'll be riding to the university on the weekend and the Saturday, Sunday temperatures are looking great.

Awesome commutes today.

29F and mostly cloudy with no winds this morning. My rear derailluer started freezing up around the middle of the commute, which is really weird. Last semester when I had freezing issues, it happened right away on the descent from my house. Looks like I'll have to lub the cables and RD. Tried a slightly different route to avoid a busy intersection. Not quite sure if I like it or not or if it's any quicker. I'll try it out for a few days and see how it goes.

46F and mostly cloudy on the commute home this afternoon with mainly cross and some tailwinds from the SSW @ 14-16mph. I'm done with my health & wellness class for the semester, so I was able to leave a bit earlier than usual. I could not believe how much positive feedback and friendly beeps I received from drivers. I even had one guy stop me to ask if I had a motor. He had seen me going down a hill and he claims that I was going more than 40mph. He was exaggerating quite a bit because I only hit ~22mph in that section. Either way, he seemed really impressed.

It was a chilly week, by Texas standards. The combination of wind and rain and cold was more than I was willing to battle on Monday, and I drove to work. I rode to work the remaining four work days, and did an extra 10 miles each day.

It was 32 degrees with snow flurries and a 20 mph north wind as I rode to work Tuesday morning. I ride 12 miles pretty much straight north to work, so it was a chilly ride. It was still 32 degrees as I rode home, but at least it was a tailwind. Wednesday morning was 23 degrees, but at least the wind had quit. It was a little warmer the rest of the week, but still chilly.

This week, I passed 5,000 miles of commuting for the year.

2011 days ridden to work: 208
2011 commuting mileage: 5085.1

Terrible commuting experience this morning. Woke up late, so I didn't have a chance to really prepare for my ride. Couldn't find my thermal gloves, so had to wear some jersey gloves and I just wore a pair of jeans. So, in short, I froze to death. It was around 20 degrees when I headed out with a little wind. Thankfully it didn't snow last night so the roads were good.

The lunar eclipse was just starting as I left the house this morning, and was about 3/4 by the time I got to the university, so I needed to keep riding :) . After 20 minutes or riding around campus and about 4 extra km, my feet were getting pretty cold so I decided to head indoors. The moon was down to a sliver and clouds were starting to come in. After changing there was too much cloud cover.

Using a chemical warmer inside the camera bag I use for my Stella headlight battery makes a huge improvement. I used the light for Thursday night's 60 minute ride and today's 65 minute ride and the warning indicator still hadn't started flashing. One day just having the battery strapped to the top tube, I only got 20 minutes on high. And with the camera case alone the light would usually drop out of high mode before getting to the university. If I needed to use the light for the return trip, it would die completely long before I got home.

The new HD Hero 2 cameras have an integrated heater to prolong the battery life in cold weather. It would be nice if headlight manufacturers looked into that.

I'm into my 3rd month of being back in NYC commuting/riding and I'm finally starting to find my old rhythm. Part of it is getting my cross street choices and avenue choices down. I'm definitely finding the bike laned routes and West Side bike path to be the best default routes. I'm automatically finding my way to those roads when I'm heading somewhere even if it's slightly less direct. And some of the non-laned streets are better than others- remembering which ones is really helpful.

I had the strangest encounter at lunch. I was heading back to my locker when a guy comes up and asks if I'll drive his car because he doesn't have a license. I told him I was just going across the street for lunch and not leaving for the day. He said that was fine because I could drive across the street and then he'd drive from there. That left me even more confused. When I asked why he didn't just drive off campus himself, he replied that campus security told him he couldn't drive on campus without a license.

I'm not sure if this guy's logic was that he could drive without a license anywhere he hasn't been explicitly told not to. Or if he was running some sort of scam that I'm nowhere devious enough to fathom.

Man, the punishment for driving without a license should be that they take away your license! Wait a second ... there is nothing to stop people from driving without a license? I guess that makes having your license suspended no more than an honor system punishment.

Sort of. Here they fine you. If they catch you at it again the fines go up. I knew a guy who refused to buy insurance yrs ago. They pulled his license and his tags. He also ignored the part about paying the fines.

Eventually it caught up with him. He did 30 days in a small county jail and was told if he didn't come up with regular payments they could provide him with accommodations for a longer period.

It was above freezing on the ride home yesterday afternoon so I did some extra riding. A new neighbourhood close to where I live has been gradually getting closer to an old neighbour that intersects my commute route. Yesterday I saw that there is a clear area of packed dirt connecting the two now. People are using it as a shortcut for their cars, so it should stay packed all winter. Going that way instead will knock three stop signs and a couple narrow spots off my commute. I rode the modified route today, and its the same distance. I was worried it might be shorter.

It should have been paved years ago, but I think some residents of what is currently a dead-end street are whining about it becoming a throughfare. Even though that has been the plan all along with the road wide enough to accomodate the traffic.

New Keen shoes from REI- Austin Pedals. Loving them and they look like real shoes. My brakes need adjusting though- gotta do that in the morning. Hadn't realized how bad they were and had a couple of freaky moments tonight- geez, I should know better! Chilly ride home tonight but seasonably chilly not really bad at all.